Iran has allowed two French former detainees to leave the country, Macron says

Macron’s office said the two French nationals left Iran by road “without any special coordination with the U.S. and Israeli forces” operating in the region, as airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran Tuesday.

Iran’s state-run agency IRNA reported Tuesday that Iran had reached an agreement with France for the release of both French citizens in exchange for Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari. Tehran has been pressing since last year for the release of Esfandiari, who has been convicted in France on charges of inciting terrorism over comments she made about the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

However, Macron’s office denied there was any such agreement about a prisoner swap, stressing that judicial proceedings in France are not over in Esfandiari’s case and that she has appealed her conviction. No details about negotiations with Iran were provided.

Macron was the first Western leader to speak to Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian after the outbreak of the Iran war, with a telephone call on March 8. Since then, the leaders spoke again twice on the phone, with Macron urging for the two French nationals to be allowed to return to France as soon as possible.

Iranian authorities freed them from prison in November but didn’t let them leave the country. They’d been held for more than three years in detention on spying charges, which Paris said were unfounded.

French officials said they were then being kept safe at the French Embassy in Tehran.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he talked on the phone with Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris who “expressed their emotion and their joy at soon being reunited with their country and their loved ones,” in a post on X. They “are definitively FREE,” he wrote, expressing gratitude for France’s ambassador and staff in Tehran who helped them remain safe “under very difficult conditions.”

Kohler and Paris were arrested in May 2022 while visiting Iran. France denounced their detention as “unjustified and unfounded.”

Western nations have accused Iran of using foreign prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.

In September, Iran’s foreign minister said the two countries were close to a prisoner swap involving Esfandiari.

That same month, France dropped its case before the International Court of Justice against Iran for violating the right to consular protection of Kohler and Paris. France has accused Iran of holding Kohler and Paris arbitrarily, denouncing “a hostage policy.” The ICJ said France requested “the discontinuance of the proceedings.”

A Paris court in February convicted Esfandiari of inciting terrorism, and sentenced her to one year in prison with an additional three-year suspended sentence, along with a permanent ban from French territory. She was released pending appeal, French authorities said.

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AP Writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Egypt contributed to the story

John Leicester And Sylvie Corbet, The Associated Press

by The Canadian Press

Iran has allowed two French former detainees to leave the country, Macron says

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